Spatiotemporal variation of precipitation on a global scale from 1960 to 2016 in a new normalized daily precipitation dataset

Increases in total and extreme precipitation have been investigated worldwide using limited spatiotemporal data based on surface observations and satellite remote sensing during recent decades. However, it remains unclear whether rain gauge daily precipitation records also show a significant increase in global precipitation. In this study, we first apply the transformed version of the penalized maximum F test (transPMFred) to homogenize daily precipitation (P) records from 10,629 stations around the world during 1960-2016 from a dataset (GHCN-CMA) that combines the daily precipitation data from the Global Historical Climatology Network (GHCN-Daily) dataset and the China Meteorological Administration (CMA), and then utilize the homogenized data to study the frequency of daily precipitation on a global scale. The results indicate that precipitation frequency exhibited significant increasing trends from 1960 to 2016 across most of the globe, except for East Asia. Moreover, the variability of global precipitation frequency was more pronounced in wet regions than dry regions, especially in North America, Europe and East Asia based multiple daily precipitation datasets. The regional average frequency for moderate (30th < P <= 60th percentile), heavy (60th < P <= 90th percentile) and very heavy (P > 90th percentile) precipitation increased in North America and Europe. Changes in precipitation frequency decreased for light (P <= 30th percentile) and moderate precipitation but increased for heavy and very heavy precipitation, which mainly occurs in dry regions of Australia. Moreover, precipitation frequency in wet and dry regions of East Asia showed opposite trends, with a decrease in wet regions and an increase in dry regions.

Automated summary

The study indicates that global precipitation frequency has significantly increased from 1960 to 2016 in most regions except East Asia. The variability of precipitation frequency is more pronounced in wet regions like North America, Europe, and East Asia. In dry regions like Australia, heavy and very heavy precipitation increased while light and moderate precipitation decreased.